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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24554356">Frater Ergo Sum</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovetincture/pseuds/lovetincture'>lovetincture</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, Second Person</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 08:53:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>623</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24554356</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovetincture/pseuds/lovetincture</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The point is you need one thing, just one good thing. If that thing is fucking your brother, holding him close at night until he shoves you off or until you do—well, you never said you were fucking normal.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>104</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Frater Ergo Sum</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There will be times when you feel helpless. There will be times when you look at him, and he’ll smile a cocky grin. There will be times when it doesn’t even seem fake—when you can’t see the edges curling up paper thin, when even <em>you</em> think he looks happy.</p><p>The only reason you know he’s not is because you know him. You <em>know,</em> and it fucking terrifies you that a thin strand of history is all that separates you from this and not knowing your brother at all.</p><p>* * *</p><p>Your brother. It’s a word that runs so easily off your tongue, bro-ther. Brother. If you say it enough times in a row, the syllables deform. Your tongue trips over them, and the sound loses all meaning. It feels like free-falling if you don’t know what this is. This one thing, the only thing.</p><p>You know that brother isn’t the word for this thing that you are. You know it doesn’t matter.</p><p>It’s the closest thing you’ve got, and you’ve always been good at making do and making it through with <em>good enough.</em></p><p>This is good enough.</p><p>* * *</p><p>This isn’t good enough, but it has to be. It has to be because it’s the only thing you’ve got. <em>Frater ergo sum.</em> He is, therefore I am.</p><p>Killing things can’t be the only thing you’re good for. It can’t be all murder, all reckless, all vice. There has to be something else, or you can’t do it. You can’t get up in the morning, see that look on his face—the one that looks like a smile but isn’t even that good. The one with cracks in the veneer, and my god, you prefer that one. The one that doesn’t deny your reality, that doesn’t make you wonder if you’re slowly losing your shit.</p><p>You like when you can still recognize him.</p><p>The point is you need one thing, just one good thing. If that thing is fucking your brother, holding him close at night until he shoves you off or until you do—well, you never said you were fucking normal.</p><p>The ship on <em>normal</em> sailed a long time ago.</p><p>* * *</p><p>You’ve never been sailing. It’s not something you’ve given a lot of thought. Sailing is something other people do, people who have houses and jobs and an honest to god weekend. People who have a couple beers and zone out in front of the tv, whose biggest concern is making time to go to the grocery store this week.</p><p>Sailing is something other people do.</p><p>You daydream about it, though. You think it must feel something like riding in the Impala used to, back when you were small enough to sleep in the backseat without having to scrunch your legs up, Dean’s breath sticky on the side of your cheek, Dad’s music playing low. It was innocent then. Actually innocent—you both were, although you’d never have believed it at the time. You never knew how bad it could actually get, but then you can’t know what you don’t know.</p><p>Back when the whole of your world could narrow down to the inside of that roving black box. Like freedom and safety all rolled into one—open road instead of open ocean. Untouchable either way, back before.</p><p>Before demons and destiny and hell got their grubby mitts all over you, messed you up until it’s hard to even feel clean, let alone safe.</p><p>Untouchable sounds like a joke now, but it’s at least a better one when he’s touching you. Funny ha-ha instead of funny sad.</p><p>Sailing is something other people do, but sometimes the rattle of cheap motel air conditioners sounds a little like the ocean, and your dreams take on a blueish hue.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Did I mangle that bit of Latin in the title? Very probably. Despite cursory attempts at researching via Google, I probably got it wrong. *waves hands* It's fanfiction. You get the general gist.</p><p>I'm somehow still on <a href="http://twitter.com/lovetincture">Twitter</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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